Asaf Zeynally
Encyclopedia
Derbent
Derbent |Lak]]: Чурул, Churul; Persian: دربند; Judæo-Tat: דארבּאנד/Дэрбэнд/Dərbənd) is a city in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia, close to the Azerbaijani border. It is the southernmost city in Russia, and it is the second most important city of Dagestan...
– 27 October 1932, Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
), was an Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
i composer.
Early life
Asaf Zeynally was the third child of the gardener Zeynalabdin and his wife Asband. He grew up in a house located next to Derbent's famous historical Naryn-Kala sight. Asaf Zeynally's father died shortly after his birth, and his mother Asband, a weaver, became the family's breadwinner. She was also an amateur musician and singer, and played the accordionAccordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
contributing to her younger son's growing passion for music. In 1916, 7-year old Zeynally started attending the Derbent Realschule
Realschule
The Realschule is a type of secondary school in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia , Denmark , Sweden , Hungary and in the Russian Empire .-History:The Realschule was an outgrowth of the rationalism and empiricism of the seventeenth and...
, a local primary school, where he became member of the school choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
and was taught to play the clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
often participating in public performances of an amateur brass band
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
outside school. In 1920, the family moved to Baku, Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
, where Zeynally continued his education at a military school, at which in addition he learned to play the trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
.
Contributions
In 1923, Zeynally enrolled in the newly-established musical college (which would be later named after him) where he was taught by prominent composer Uzeyir HajibeyovUzeyir Hajibeyov
Uzeyir bey Abdul Hussein oglu Hajibeyov was an Azerbaijani and Soviet composer, conductor, publicist, playwright, teacher, translator, and social figure from Azerbaijan. He is recognized as the father of Azerbaijani classical music and opera...
. While studying at the college, he composed his first work entitled Mahni ("The Song") and performed it on a trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
. The performance was perceived at revolutionary by music experts as the young composer managed to adjust the ceremonial march
March (music)
A march, as a musical genre, is a piece of music with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for marching to and most frequently performed by a military band. In mood, marches range from the moving death march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk military marches of John...
-like tune of the instrument in order to play folk Azeri music. Encouraged by Hajibeyov, Zeynally enrolled in the composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
program at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire upon graduating from the musical college in 1926. Along with writing music, Zeynally publishes articles on Azeri musical culture, in which he mainly develops Hajibeyov's method of merging traditional Azeri styles with Western European classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
. In the early 1930s, he was among members of intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
who opposed the goal of the Soviets
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to ban tar
Tar (lute)
The tār is a long-necked, waisted Iranian instrument. It has been adopted by other cultures and Azerbaijan. The word tar itself means "string" in Persian, though it might have the same meaning in languages influenced by Persian or any other branches of Iranian languages like Kurdish...
. Since 1928 Zeynally taught at the music school by the Conservatoire, where he teaches theories of music (Gara Garayev
Gara Garayev
Gara Abulfaz oghlu Garayev , also spelled as Qara Qarayev or Kara [Abulfazovich] Karayev, was a prominent Azerbaijani composer of the Soviet period...
, Jovdat Hajiyev
Jovdat Hajiyev
Ahmad Jovdat Ismayil oglu Hajiyev was one of the major Azerbaijani composers of the Soviet period. He is remembered for his monumental orchestral works, having been the first Azerbaijani to compose a symphony...
and Tofig Guliyev
Tofig Guliyev
Tofig Alakbar oglu Guliyev – Azerbaijani composer, pianist, conductor, People's Artist of the USSR.-Biography:Tofig Guliyev was born on November 7, 1917, in Baku, in the family of salary worker. He became a student of the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire when he was 12 years old due to his musical...
were among his students). 1929 becomes the peak of the composer's activity. Among his works produced that year, there was the romance
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
Olkam ("My Country"), children's suite
Suite
In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...
, Garabagh shikastasi for a symphonic orchestra, and other folk songs adjusted for Western instruments. In 1931 graduated from the Conservatoire and was appointed head of the Department of Music of the Baku Turkic Labour Theatre. There, his main contribution was writing music for the controversial propaganda play Sevil. In 1932, the theatre successfully toured Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
.
Asaf Zeynally died in 1932, at the age of 23, of an illness, never getting to compose the monumental symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
dedicated to Baku that he had planned earlier.